AEK 4-0 Panionios

Last week’s Superleague match ended 1-0 for AEK in Tripolis. While it was a good result for us considering our lack of wins in Tripolis, the performance wasn’t the most inspiring. Today’s match against Panionios on the other hand was quite the opposite. Aside from the emphatic scoreline, we also saw an AEK that was calm, organized, and able to perfectly execute their game plan.

Livaja had an off day to say the least. Livaja from a few games back would have easily put away one or two of his chances but yesterday he just wasn’t himself. Perhaps he was still getting over the emotional high from featuring for the Croatian national team just a few days ago but it was obvious his mind wasn’t fully in the game. I’m not too worried though keeping in mind the great form he has been in since last season.

Aside from Livaja, the entire team looked sharp. Barkas had little to do since our defense, particularly Bakakis, Lambropoulos, and Chygrinskiy all looked very solid and calm under pressure. In fact has AEK365 accurately put it, Barkas “had the best ticket in the stadium”. Essentially he was a spectator for the entire match, though I doubt he could complain about that.

Our midfield was solid, controlling the pace of the game for the entire 90 minutes. Mantalos looked particularly good, lively with his feet and delivering good balls to the box in typical Mantalos fashion. I was yet again impressed by Alef as well. For a fairly young player, he shows a lot of composure when he has the ball at his feet. What I find especially noteworthy is that he knows exactly when to risk a bit and bring the ball forward, and when to play the safe route with a safer pass.

Our attack was, as the scoreline suggested, especially clinical. I’ll be honest, I was a bit worried when we had much of the control for the first half but continued struggling to find the back of the net. When Ponce broke the deadlock seconds before half time though, everything seemed to click from that point on. The highlight of our offense however was Klonaridis, coming on as a substitute 81st minute but managing to find the net twice. His form has been phenomenal lately and if this keeps up, we’ll have a lot more to look forward to from him.

This result couldn’t have come at a better time with our first Champions League group stage match coming up this week. AEK will travel to Amsterdam where they will take on Ajax and to be completely honest, I fully believe we can sneak away with a draw or maybe even a win. Ajax are strong, don’t get me wrong. But this AEK team have shown that they can make the opposition struggle to find space and they seem to have found a system that works for them. It won’t be easy, but I’m certainly looking forward to this match!

AEK 3-1 PAS Giannena

Our strong start to 2018 continued with another win, this time against 11th placed PAS Giannena. Overall it was a fairly decent game, but Giannena did manage to tie the match at 1-1 for a while which resulted in some uncertainty. Ultimately though, despite the generally slow pace to the match, our finishing was critical enough when we needed it to be.

Our scorers were, unsurprisingly, Livaja with the opener and Araujo with the 2nd and 3rd goals. Araujo’s goals today mean he has now scored 5 goals in the last 5 games while Livaja has also scored 4 goals in the last 6 games. Pretty decent numbers overall and despite Araujo getting off to a slow start for us this season, its safe to say that he has earned his spot in the roster yet again.

The commentators mentioned today that the match had a generally slow pace and I would have to agree. That’s not to say we played poorly, because we did have some chances, but overall it seemed like we were lacking some urgency at times. Thankfully, that changed a bit when we conceeded and the Giannena red card also seemed to serve as motivation for the team, but for a while I was nervous about whether we would actually regain the lead.

One thing worth pointing out about today’s match was that our defense was definitely the weakest link in the team today. It was a poor clearance which led to Giannena’s goal, and there were a number of occasions where other poor clearances took place which luckily didn’t result in more goals against us. We struggled to deal with routine balls a few times and if it was another team we were playing against, we may not have been so lucky.

In any case, its another huge 3 points as the top of the table is still extremely tight. Olympiakos play tomorrow and assuming they win, we’ll be tied for second with PAOK, just one point behind first place.

AEK 1-0 Olympiakos

A promising start with Manolo has gotten even better after we beat Olympiakos at OAKA for the third time in a row. Not only was yesterday’s result a satisfying one because we beat a team that has proven itself to be run by hypocritical sore losers, but it also put us back in playoff spots after months outside of the top 5.

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t particularly worried before the start of the game. I mean, you can never know how a derby will turn out but I felt like there was no reason we couldn’t come away with a good result. We’ve shown the past two times we played them in OAKA that on any day Olympiakos are a very beatable team, especially when the officiating isn’t skewed in their favour.

Aside from a few brief spells in the first half, AEK were visibly the team that wanted the result more. I read before the game that Manolo had focused on getting the team to play a high pressure game, with a focus on giving Olympiakos as little space as possible, and it seemed clear to me that the players got the message. The pressure from the team was relentless and on a number of occasions we were able to easily regain possession after Olympiakos players were caught standing like pylons.

Aside from being the team that showed more pressure and drive, we were also the far more organized team along with being the team that was ready to risk a bit in order to get some attacks started. Mantalos and Araujo were especially dangerous going forward with but overall we seemed eager to get bodies in the box. With a bit more luck we could have come away with a couple more goals too.

Our defense was pretty solid too with Lambropoulos having the game of his life. His positioning was perfect and the commentators commented that he had a very “smart” game overall, making challenges when it was the right time to do so, but holding back when it was appropriate too. It was great to see considering he hasn’t always had the best of luck in previous derbies.

We still have a lot of work to do, but yesterday’s win is the perfect way to lead us into the playoffs. With the way we played yesterday, and perhaps a bit more discipline in front of net, I expect us to into our remaining derbies with Panathinaikos and PAOK confident that we’ll get three points from each of those games, as we ended up doing last season. We have some other tough games coming up as well including against Platanias and Panionios, so we’ll need to be in the best form we can possibly be in as there is still a very real chance that we can drop some points and risk our spot in the playoffs. But with yesterday’s result, we’ve proven that we should be able to get close to the maximum possible points from our nine remaining games.

The atmosphere was, as it always is during these derbies, fantastic. We even received compliments from the refs who, aside from a few notes about flares, mentioned no troubling incidents. A few Olympiakos officials though (most notably a typically whiny Savvas Theodoridis) of course had plenty of complaints about the officiating, claiming that it was a disgrace for Greek football. There are a number of videos on YouTube showing previous favourable calls that Olympiakos has received in past derbies, but I guess he instead choses to turn a blind eye towards those and instead focus on yesterday’s game.

What he was complaining about I’m not entirely sure. The red card for Botias was entirely reasonable, and I noticed very few questionable calls from the officials for either side, apart from one instance when the linesman allowed Araujo to continue a run which was offside. Anyone without red tinted glasses would have noticed that Olympiakos simply weren’t good enough yesterday, but I guess its easier to criticize a few officials than it is to get your team to play the way they need to.

Anyways, enough commenting on them. There’s been enough of that going on in Greece today…

Highlights:

Behind the scenes:

And the goals just keep coming..

AEK 6-0 Veria

Just a few days after beating Levadeiakos 6-0 in the Cup, our attacking form carried over to our league game today against Veria. Thats right, two 6-0 games in a row, bringing our total goals scored to 15 after the first five games for Jimenez. Not only that, but we’ve managed to not concede a single goal since he took over, an impressive feat considering we were conceding a little too easily prior to his time with the team.

Aside from the game against Tripolis, we’ve faced pretty weak opposition since hes been in charge. Regardless, the change is evident and whether we’re able to compete consistently with the teams above us remains to be seen doesn’t take away from the fact that the team has seemed to have found confidence and understanding on the pitch that simply wasn’t there before.

Today’s lineup featured some changes from the lineup against Levadeiakos but it seemed to work just as well. Notably, Bakasetas wasn’t in the starting lineup today as our attacking midfield instead consisted of Mantalos, Araujo, and Christodolopoulos. Also of note was the fact that Pekhart was the striker with Araujo instead playing a support role today. From what I was hearing on the radio, it seemed to work quite well, even though surprisingly enough, both Pekhart and Araujo did not end up on the scoring sheet.

The MVP of the match was, without much surprise, Christodolopoulos. He opened the scoring with a fantastic finish and finished the match up with the final goal just before the whistle. Our other scorers were Lambropoulos and Mantalos, while Veria also scored an own goal.

Overall it sounded like the entire team played well today. Veria might not have pressured us very much at all throughout the game but it didn’t sound like we had a weak link out there, something which I’m not used to seeing with this team so far this season.

I’ve posted a YouTube video of the highlights below but seeing as the quality is quite awful, you can also see higher quality highlights on the NovaSports site: http://aek365.novasports.gr

 

EDIT: I completely forgot to mention the goal by Vranjes. He has been pretty solid for us and as others have commented online, our defense when he is finally paired with Chyrgrynski will be pretty impressive.

PAOK 1-0 AEK

Referee Mistakes Play Huge Role This Weekend

After an eventful Atromitos-Olympiakos macthup the day before which saw many questionable refereeing decisions go Olympiakos’ way, it was another poor call which ultimately led to PAOK’s extra time winner.

It was a shame really since AEK could have and really should have come away from this game with the point, a result which in all honesty I would have been pleased with considering how we fared in our last derby. We started the game with much more control than we did when we faced Olympiakos and while we never fully looked like the stronger team on the pitch, it was clear that the team had at least some kind of a game plan compared to that awful night in Karaiskaki a little while back.

I have to give credit to Morais. Just a few hours before the game, it was announced the Chyrgrinsky would have to sit the game out after picking up an illness. The loss of easily our best defender would be enough to worry any player and manager but the team didn’t seem bothered by his absence at all. In fact, it has to be said that both Kolovetsios and Lambropopoulos did very well to handle the numerous attacks that PAOK sent forward. What I was very pleased to see was the no-nonsense approach of the centre backs who opted to simply place the ball out of play rather than go for a risky move when such an option came around.

Lambropoulos specifically deserves a lot of credit for his performance today, handling himself very well in a high pressure situation despite having some rather terrible outings in an unnatural position for him earlier this season. He hadn’t had it easy before Morais’ arrival, with Ketsbaia insisting on playing him in midfield when he clearly wasn’t comfortable there. Today’s performance though suggested that he hasn’t let any of that get to him as he did well to intervene in a number of PAOK’s more dangerous scoring opportunities.

Anestis also had a fantastic game, making some great saves to deny PAOK throughout the game. He too also played the game well today, performing none of the errors that we’ve seen him do time and time again. Its safe to say that if wasn’t having a good day today, PAOK couldn’t have gotten the lead far earlier than they did.

Overall the team did better than I was expecting them to do. Thats not to say that they had a fantastic game, because they didn’t. But they managed to string some plays together and despite giving PAOK a little too much room up front, they managed to handle themselves well enough defensively so that most of PAOK’s good changes were quickly extinguished before they could really lead to anything.

PAOK were, as to be expected considering they were home and our form has been poor, the better team (but only slightly). With a slightly better attack today we could have put a lot more pressure on PAOK but we couldn’t capitalize on the few chances that came our way. Almeida had a great chance to put us ahead just before the half when his point blank shot just metres from the net missed the target. Lazaros also hit the cross bar after a great shot but it was not enough to get us in front which was a shame really because I feel like had we managed to sneak in a goal, we could have held on for the win today which was something we’ve struggled to do recently in Toumba.

As for PAOK’s goal, well I’ll let you see for yourselves in the highlights but basically it comes down to PAOK scoring off of a corner that never should have been called. Whether that bad call comes down to referee error or some other influence on the game I can’t say.

Also seen in the highlights is the moment a flare lands on the pitch after being shot from a flare gun. The game was called off temporarily at this point but what I find funny is the fact that many within the PAOK camp were complaining about the flares at their derby against Olympiakos the other week… where were those complaints when there own fans were guilty?

Highlights:

http://aek365.novasports.gr

Basketball Team Making Us Proud Again

Despite falling behind against Trikala earlier in the match, we managed to come away with a considerable 59-78 away win, partly thanks yet again to our fantastic away support. The result is yet another crucial win for us as we stay top of the league, undefeated after four league games this season.

AEK 1-0 Wigry Suwalki

So we played our third friendly of the pre-season and managed to come away with yet another win, and another clean sheet. I didn’t get to watch the match though I did take a peak at the commentary at work and it didn’t sound like the most exciting of games. We had a few half chances but there was very little to be happy about from the sounds of things. Its not that we played poorly, but we just didn’t manage to settle into any rhythm and we didn’t seem to pressure nearly as much as would have been expected.

Our scorer was yet again Lambropoulos and if there is one thing to take away from these past few games, its the fact that we seem pretty strong and organized on set pieces. Great to hear, but I’m curious to see how well we’ll do on set pieces against stronger teams..

Asteras Tripolis 0-0 AEK

Didn’t get the chance to watch the game since I was at work, but I’ll try to summarize some of the main points from the game based on the highlights and what I read during and after the game.

The good:

• We managed to at least get a point. Asteras are never an easy opponent, as they proved in the first round, so I guess a point isn’t all that bad. We’re still five points ahead of Panathinaikos and have an easier schedule ahead of us.
• Cordero managed to get some solid game time without picking up an injury, and Buonanotte also got the chance to play a bit.

The bad:

• We really could not finish, and that is worrying. Its one thing if we struggle to create chances, but we definitely made some chances today but still never really looked like scoring. As my father pointed out, we have a number of set plays but still Poyet didn’t even give Pekhart a chance as a sub. Personally I feel like today would have been a great game for Pekhart, at least after half time.
• Djebbour is bad… really bad. I wouldn’t be upset if I never saw him play again to be honest. Mistake after mistake, and an absolutely pointless red card to top off what was a terrible performance. Linking to my previous point, I really have to wonder why Poyet went with Djebbour over Pekhart.
• Asteras had way too many chances. We were lucky to not concede, very lucky. Based on what I saw from the highlights, I would even say that Asteras looked more dangerous inside the box than we did, and our sloppy defending did little help. Terrible clearances, poor tackles or a lack of any sort of tackle when it was needed, we ended up giving Asteras way more room and time than we should have.
• We should have had a penalty after Iglesias pulled Lambropoulos down in the box. How neither the ref not the linesmen saw it I really can’t understand.

So not a great game overall. At least both teams managed to create a few chances, but we really could have and should have come away from this game more. Its games like these though that show how desperately we need players with experience, calm nerves, and motivation. Sure we got some big derby wins and theres no denying that our players have the right attitude at times, but we need a team that will walk away from games like today’s with three points and without even struggling to do it. I know everyone always says it, but its games like these that always count in the end. The derby wins are nice, but we absolutely need to get all three points from the smaller games where a team like AEK should always be the favourite.

Not much else to say about the game since I didn’t actually get the chance to watch it, but I will mention the fact that Zuculini was in the stands to support the team, having travelled from Athens to Tripoli with crutches just so he could be there with them. I don’t know whats in store for him, and whether we’ll actually ever see him play for us again, but the fact that hes been attending practices and following games despite still recovering from his injury is quite something. There’s no doubting that he wants to be part of the team and I can only hope that he recovers fully so we can see him action again. I’m sure he still has a lot more to offer.

One final thing to note was that Johansson picked up an injury. Definitely not something I want to hear with playoffs coming up rather quickly, but judging from what I’ve heard, it doesn’t sound too serious. He’ll need some time off, but I’m hoping he’ll be back within a game or two.

Highlights on the NovaSport sight as usual:

http://aek365.novasports.gr

Larissa 0-5 AEK

Three wins in three games, twelve goals scored and none conceeded, and just like that we finish the first round of the cup in first place in our group.

I did not expect the first round to be the easy, especially not after our first game ending with a rather unimpressive 1-0 score, but whether it came down to good playing from us, weak opposition, or a bit of both, we certainly took advantage of the easier games to show what we’re capable of. Something worth noting about this particular game is the fact that the last time we beat Larissa by an impressive score in their own home was a 0-4 win in the 2010 Cup. Of course, we went on to win the Cup that season so I’m hoping yesterday’s match is a good sign for us.

Its nice when we not only score so many goals, but when all the goals are very well taken. Mantalos’ chip and Djebbour’s shot with his back towards the net were both very well played, but the player who really showed his class was Buonnanotte. Its certainly nice to see goals like that again, bringing back memories of when we had Scocco doing similar thing to opposition defense’s. Whether we’re going to see more of this in the coming games I can’t say, but the signs are definitely there and I look forward to seeing what else he can do.

Poyet gave some bench players a run for this game and while they did not have too much to worry about from Larissa, its nice to see they handled the game pretty well. Tzanetopoulos, Anestis, Bakakis, and Soiledis all started the game and I think its safe to say that they’ve given Poyet a reason to give them another chance. I also appreciate Poyet giving our Greek players some solid playing time. I was worried at first that they wouldn’t be a part of his plans, but the fact that six out of the starting eleven were Greek is reassuring to see.

Highlights are well worth the watch, not only for the goals that we score, but those that we missed. Djebbour had a great chance but his well taken header was just saved. Vargas also missed an incredible opportunity, but he did well to score later in the game and make up for the miss.

PAO 0-0 AEK

A point from the first derby for our new coach is not a bad result at all, even if we could have come away from this game with all three points. Considering he has only had two practice sessions to get familiar with the players, he did a fairly decent job in my opinion, even if I personally would have liked to have seen a couple different changes. We were set up pretty well defensively but it was our midfield set up which allowed us to keep the game from getting out of our control. The pressure we applied throughout prevented PAO from ever getting really comfortable in the middle of the pitch both when attacking and defending, forcing them to attack from the wings quite often (something which they weren’t too good at today). When they did manage to get an attack to end up in the center of the pitch, they were only ever able to get an effort on goal via long shots, shots which very rarely threatened us except for one shot from Berg which hit the cross bar.

Offensively, we were able to get the ball to transition quite quickly, with Johansson, Simoes, Barbosa, and Galo doing well to move the ball around and control the centre and the wings. Unfortunately though, we were clearly lacking in the final third of the pitch, with Chrisantus not providing the attacking options that he should have and Vargas not being dangerous enough aside from a couple chances.

I’ll have a go at some of my own player ratings for today’s game. For once in as long as I can remember, I had a stream which did not skip or cut out once for the entire match so I was able to get a good sense of how we were playing.

Baroja: He was solid, positioning himself perfectly and making the saves he had to. Could not ask for any more from him really, did the job he had to and did it with confidence. Definitely something we were missing last year with Anestis.

Galo: Provided a lot of energy to the match, did well offensively and defensively. He did make some mistakes, but his pace meant he was often able to make up for them. He also came close on a free kick.

Lambropoulos and Kolovetsios: They were both pretty solid in the back, stopping PAO from getting too close to our net whenever they had the chance. They were decent on the set plays and generally managed to handle whatever PAO had to offer. Had this been a stronger PAO team, perhaps things would have different, though that would be impossible to tell. Either way, a solid centre back pair that Poyet should definitely consider sticking with.

Didac: Also did a pretty good job defensively and offensively. He didn’t have as much to work with defensively as PAO had fewer attacks come down our left wing, and he also did not provide the kind of runs that Galo would, but he still ventured forward and offered support whenever needed. He did make a few mistakes though.

Johansson: WIthout him, this may have been a very different game. I know I’ve said this before, but he is without a doubt one of the best singings we’ve made in the past three years. Always such a calm and assuring presence in the middle of the pitch, he is able to win balls well and hold on to them until the right pass can be made. He doesn’t stand out the way a player like Barbosa or Simoes does, but I would say his contribution to our performances is possibly more important than any other player on the pitch.

Simoes: He had a good game, though I’m not sure I would give him the 9 out of 10 that AEK365 gave him. He linked up well with the rest of our midfield and provided options and runs when needed.

Vargas: Had a phenomenal chance early on, but he seemed to be quiet for large periods of the game. In fact, I often saw Chrisantus coming back to link up with our central midfielders often when Vargas was nowhere to be found.

Mantalos: Had some very good runs and was key to any attack we had down the left, but unfortunately his crosses and set play deliveries were very poor today. What makes Mantalos such a critical player is the way he can get balls into dangerous places so well, and when he isn’t doing that as was the case today, the whole team suffers. I know he can do better, and I’m confident he will in our next game, assuming the injury he picked up today does not turn out to be too serious.

Barbosa: Probably the best attacking player for us today, showing a lot of ambition going forward. His effort was unfortunately more often than not wasted as we had no attacking presence in front of the PAO goal, but he was involved whenever he could have been and with a solid striker or two, he can end up being one of our most important players. Unfortunately, he was not linking up well with Chrisantus today.

Chrisantus: I’ve heard a lot of negativity towards Chrisantus, though I still have to say that I disagree. Is he my first choice for striker? Of course not, but with the way we played today, it hardly mattered what strikers we had up front. With so few good balls being played into the box, there was only so much he could do. It got to the point where he was playing deeper and deeper into midfield as the game progressed, looking to help create something up front. His presence in the box on set plays was not the best, but neither were the balls being played in so again I don’t feel like he is to blame. He will definitely need to calm down when he was possession though. Far too often he looks uncomfortable and nervous when he has the ball, and it was definitely a reason he was making so many poor passes. I truly believe that if he learns to calm down a bit when he’s playing, he can be a very effective player upfront.

Overall, neither team looked very dangerous. Overall PAO created the better chances, but there were spells when they were non-existent such as when they lost Lagos to injury early on. We had our chances to, but as with PAO none of the chances we created were very convincing. In fact, if it were not for PAO’s cross bar, I would say that both teams were equally dull offensively. As far as midfield is concerned, we were able to take control with far more confidence than PAO, but I would have to say that PAO overall played a better defensive game than we did, but only slightly.

It was an unfortunate result since a stronger AEK would have taken this game with ease. But the reverse could also be said about PAO. If they had the teams they had in the past, I would have to say that they would have walked all over us. Its unfortunate that both teams are so weak compared to what they used to be because if that were not the case, Olympiakos’ lead at the top of the table would have been far smaller at this point.

In terms of coaching, as I mentioned above I felt that Poyet had us set up quite well. Possibly the only thing I would have done differently (and I know I’m not the only one who feels this way) would have been to put Buonanotte in far earlier. I possibly also would have taken Mantalos out earlier and put Platellas on to replace him. Poyet’s decision to put Cordero one however was a very good one since it was a move that allowed us to keep our control of the midfield at a time when it was starting to slip away from us.

Surprisingly, I felt the ref had a pretty good game. It was a pretty high contact game but he made the right choices for the most part as far as calling fouls, and he stayed away from the cards when he was able to. It was quite refreshing actually to see a derby played where the ref wasn’t a key factor. The same can’t be said for Olympiakos’ game with Veria yesterday, but what else is new…

At the moment, the only highlights I can find are on NovaSport’s site here: http://aek365.novasports.gr

AEK 1-0 Atromitos

An unconvincing scoreline to accompany a similarly unconvincing performance for AEK. Okay, it wasn’t that bad, but we certainly didn’t play the best football I’ve seen from the team.

If one thing is clear from today’s game, its the fact that we desperately need some more attacking presence up front. Our midfield did well today to create some chances since Atromitos was determined to shut us down outside their box, but despite all our efforts, it was not until Chrisantus came on as a sub late in the game when we were finally able to break the deadlock.

I have no complaints at all about Aravidis, and despite Chrisantus’ lack of goals scored, I can’t complain about him too much either, but those two are simply not enough of a threat up front. We were so badly lacking the finishing touch today, and sooner or later, not being able to finish our chances will really make the difference when we need it most. Aravidis can’t be expected to do it all on his own, and while Chrisantus seems to contribute overall when hes on the pitch, his goal scoring record certainly needs some improvement. Of course we have Djebbour, but even in the past he was anything but reliable, and to be honest I wouldn’t mind if we got rid of him altogether considering he has hardly proved he deserves a spot, and his attitude seems to be as much of a problem as ever. I’m really worried that our lack of strikers is going to lead to more close matches for us, matches we should be winning with fairly convincing scorelines.

Aside from our offense today, our defense was also quite unconvincing. Galo and Didac did well on the wings, particularly going forward, but Lambropoulos and Tzanetopoulos in the centre seemed unorganized quite a few times (this was particularly a problem since Atromitos seemed to prefer attacking through the centre). Fortunately, our midfield did a fairly decent job of moving the ball around, but with an easily undone central defense and a lack of finishing up front, we’re going to have a tough time in Karaiskaki next week.

It was nice to Cordero come on towards the end of the match. Hopefully he’ll be able to stay healthy for a while as its been quite a long time since we’ve really had the chance to see what he can do.

Overall I can’t say I was too happy with what I saw today. I was never worried about us not finishing with the three points, but the team never really seemed to gel at any point during the game. We were limping through the entire match, and I’m not sure if it was complacency, nerves for next week, or us just being in a poor psychological state in general. Either way, we are now six games in and if the team is going to start showing some truly promising signs, it has to happen now. We have a three point cushion in third at the moment, but with two more big derbies coming up before the winter break, we’ll definitely need to see more from the team if we can expect to comfortably make the playoffs.

For highlights, as usual, check our novasport page: http://aek365.novasports.gr